The wind carried the scent of rain as Alex stepped out of the house, a folded paper list and a few coins tucked into his coat pocket. The sky above the rooftops was streaked with dull grey, the kind that warned of drizzle rather than storms, but he didn't mind. In fact, the coolness in the air helped clear the fog of his thoughts.
His father had returned to the shed after lunch, muttering about fixing the lawnmower before it "exploded properly," and Sophie was happily drawing on the lounge floor under their mother's watchful eye. For the first time in a week, Alex felt the desire to leave the comfort of the house.
"Get some bread, a bottle of milk, and eggs if they've any left," his mother had said. "And no loitering, mind."
He promised, though even he wasn't sure he'd keep to it.
The streets of this parallel London were beginning to take shape in his mind—familiar yet skewed. Electric buses rolled past horse-drawn carts. Men in bowler hats walked beside women in shoulder-padded blouses and fur-lined coats. And though the city carried the hum of modernity, it whispered of something older, something underneath.
Alex turned the corner into the market square, his shoes scuffing across uneven cobbles. The place was alive with movement—vendors calling prices, paperboys shouting headlines, children weaving through carts. The smells were rich and comforting: roasted chestnuts, damp wool, fresh bread.
He paused to buy a warm loaf from the baker's stall and tucked it under his arm, breathing in its buttery crust. He'd just reached the milk vendor when something strange caught his eye.
A boy.
Ginger-haired, freckled, no more than a year younger than him. He was standing motionless in front of a red postbox, frowning at it like it had insulted his mother. He reached out hesitantly and prodded the metal surface, then leapt back as if expecting it to spark.
Alex tilted his head, watching.
The boy's clothes were wrong. He wore a worn grey shirt, buttoned all the way up to the collar, held in place by old-fashioned braces clipped to brown wool trousers. His boots were laced tightly, but the leather looked handmade, scuffed and stitched rather than polished. A flat cap sat crookedly on his head, as though someone had once explained hats to him but not how to wear one.
The boy shuffled uncertainly across the street and paused again, this time in front of a parked car. He bent low, peering into the hubcap with a puzzled expression, as if he was trying to divine its purpose. A woman walking her dog gave him a wary glance. He didn't seem to notice.
What is he doing? Alex wondered.
He watched the boy trail his fingers along a lamppost, tap the wooden bench, and marvel—openly marvel—at a radio playing outside a record shop. He leaned forward and spoke softly to it in a language Alex didn't recognise, all vowels and tone, like a stream over stones.
Something about the boy stirred a prickling in Alex's spine.
He knew that look.
That deep disorientation. That sense of being somewhere almost familiar but fundamentally wrong. The boy wasn't just strange.
He was lost.
And more than that—he wasn't from here.
Alex took a step forward, clutching the bag with the bread tighter. The boy had just picked up a tin of sardines from a crate, turning it over in his hands like it was an alien artefact. The vendor, a gruff man with a moustache that resembled an angry squirrel, snatched it away.
"Oi! This ain't a museum, lad."
The boy blinked. "I beg your—?"
"Off with you now. Go on!"
The boy backed away quickly, glancing left and right like he wasn't sure which direction to run. And then, as if guided by instinct, his eyes locked onto Alex.
Their gazes met.
For a moment, the world fell into hush.
There was a flicker of understanding—like a key turning in a long-forgotten lock. In the boy's green-flecked eyes, Alex saw something both familiar and unnerving: the look of someone trying very hard to seem normal in a world that made no sense.
And in Alex's face, the boy seemed to see the same.
They stared at one another.
The boy took one cautious step toward him.
But before either could speak, a voice cut through the noise like a wire snapping.
"Edwin!"
A tall woman burst into view from behind a flower stall. Her cloak was deep blue, almost military, and her pale face was set in tight disapproval. Her hair was swept into a twisted plait, and her eyes flicked across the market like a falcon hunting. She seized the boy's shoulder and hissed something in that same strange, musical tongue.
"I only meant to—" the boy began.
"Not here," she snapped.
And just like that, she turned on her heel and ushered him away, hand firm on his back. The crowd closed around them like mist, and in seconds, they were gone.
Alex blinked, trying to follow, but they'd disappeared.
Not just hidden.
Gone.
As if the market had swallowed them whole.
He stood in the square for a few moments longer, the bag of bread warming his side. A man shouted about plums being half-price. Somewhere a whistle blew. A tram hissed along the track.
But all Alex could see was the boy's face.
The confusion.
The fear.
And that glimmer of recognition.
Who was he? And how had he ended up here?
Alex walked home slowly, the milk sloshing in the bottle against his leg. His head swam with thoughts. The moment he stepped through the front door, his mother called from the kitchen.
"Did they have eggs?"
"No," Alex said, distracted.
She looked over at him. "Everything alright?"
He nodded, forcing a smile. "Yeah. Just busy."
He climbed the stairs to his room and shut the door behind him. On his desk, the notebook still sat open. He picked up his pencil and wrote just four words:
The boy was lost.